The interview process was quite smooth. Interviews were easily scheduled, conducted without delay, and recorded effortlessly. My two interviews happened over FaceTime audio, and were recorded on a Voice Memos app on my phone. The interviewees were both females who work for Deloitte Consulting in the D.C. area named Autumn and Kailyn. I’ve broken down some important lessons I learned throughout the interview process with them.
Anticipate uncertainty with questions
One of the questions outlined in our interview guide was related to social life. It asked the subject to discuss how their lifestyle choices affects their social life. After practice interviews and group discussions, my team and I felt confident that confusion with the questions had been mostly addressed. Because of that, I was caught slightly off-guard when one of my interviewees asked, “what do you mean by social life?” I was eventually able to formulate a definition of social life that addressed the aspects of socializing in which we were interested (e.g. having time to host company, meet friends elsewhere, etc.), but that helped me realize that terms can be interpreted in many different ways. It is important as an interviewer to expect the need to further define and clarify common terms to establish an understanding with the interview subject.
Stay silent during the answer
It is, of course, natural instinct to affirm someone in a conversation when they are making statements. Whether it’s something nonverbal like a nod or a verbal confirmation, it is easy to communicate some form of affirmation. Because my interviews were digital, nonverbal affirmation was easily avoided. However, I did verbally communicate affirmations such as a simple “mhm” or “of course” a few times between statements, and I found this can be disruptive during an interview for two distinct reasons:
- Affirmation may prevent elaboration. During a specific question during my first interview with a woman named Autumn, I remember stating something along the lines, “of course,” multiple times. Whenever I did so, I found that it would stop her short in continuing to explain her emotions or feelings behind her actions because the affirmation may have communicated that I understood not only what she was saying, but what she meant. So I would redirect her to her answer and ask for more elaboration. This was an interesting exercise in the psychology of conversation because, as I reflected on this, I found that affirmations do often function as more than just simple understanding of what is said. I felt that perhaps this may be the reason that I have so often heard the phrase, “do you know what I mean?” in conversation. It’s a check of understanding for not only what was said, but what that statement may imply beyond the words communicated. So by avoiding those consistent affirmations, I am affording the interview subject an opportunity to fully explain their answer without any notion that their answer is being interpreted beyond only what they have stated.
- Affirmation may falsely communicate “correctness.” This idea speaks to some of the readings we completed in preparation for this phase of the process. When interviewing, subjects may often feel a certain pressure to be “correct.” Of course, none of the questions being asked have a “right” answer. As long as the answer provides some insight into their behavior, it is a great answer. However, an affirmation may serve to communicate that what a subject is saying is more “correct” than something else. For example, in my interview with Autumn, she discussed how she really enjoys going out and socializing, but also briefly mentioned that she has a strong preference to stay at home. When I let out an “of course,” at that statement, she dropped the socializing part of her answer and continued to elaborate about her preference to be at home. When asked about the disparity, she gave a very insightful answer about her love for hosting company at her home. So that interaction helped me become more keenly aware of how affirmations can redirect an answer and perhaps hide insightful responses.
Anticipate widely different personal speech idiosyncrasies
While transcribing the interview with Autumn and listening to my recording with Kailyn, I became keenly aware of just how differently people speak compared to how they write. In transcribing Autumn’s interview, I found that she would speak almost complete sentences before backtracking to the start and changing her statement. In my other interview, I found that personal idiosyncrasies and filler words are used even in response to questions that are not particularly abstract such as those related to age and occupation. This was important to keep in mind as insights were not always “cleanly” communicated statements, and were often gleaned in the midst of long, drawn-out, and self-edited responses to questions. Having a learned patience in listening to and recording responses is an excellent skill in interviewing and in life (not to mention it made me aware of my own idiosyncrasies!).
Overall, the interview stage taught me a lot about practice, preparation, interviewing, revising, analysis, and more. I have never participated in qualitative research before this exercise, so this was particularly insightful. The entire interviewing phase felt as if it drew heavily upon psychology, and in doing so, transmitted some very insightful lessons on communication. These are powerful lessons and I look forward to using them in my daily life.